We have now lived in McDonough for about 2 months. During that time, we have continued to be blessed with opportunity to minister in our home and also have some time to travel to visit churches we have worked with before. We have the regular meetings of the church on Sunday afternoons starting at 4pm. We gather with the other Christians at the Scarbrough home for a meal. We then have a time of fellowship, teaching of God's Word, remembering the Lord Jesus Christ in the Lord's Supper, and often a men's study will conclude the night 4-5 hours later. This weekly gathering has become a great source of encouragement, challenge, and learning as we search the Scriptures and seek the leading of the Holy Spirit in our meetings.
We also get together on Wednesdays as a group to pray together and share what the Lord has been doing in our lives in the interim. We are happy to report that often the prayer requests don't need to be spoken, as the group is very close and in constant contact throughout the week visiting, praying together, and having fellowship with one another. Sara meets weekly with one of the younger Christian sisters in a one-to-one for the purpose of edifying one another and searching out the Biblical pattern for wives and mothers. This has been a great blessing to Sara, and we hope to have more opportunities as the days go by for this type of ministry. Mark spends a few hours with some of the brothers weekly as schedule allows. These times of discussion, prayer, and study of God's Word have proved to be quite encouraging to Mark, and have helped us get to know the saints here locally. Between all this and correspondence, phone calls, emails, and teaching our family, we are all pretty busy, but a good kind of busy.
In recent weeks, we have discussed at length many important issues as a new church, and we have been blessed by the time with all of the Christians we know in the area. We have a weekly Bible study in our home with a local woman who was initially contacted almost 2 years ago when the Good News on the Move (GNOM) team was here. We just started going through the Gospel of Mark together, with a verse by verse discussion of the message of the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus.
This study is in the same style as we used in Key West, with an informal teaching time that is open for questions and discussion. Right now, we just have the one lady meeting with us, but we are hoping the Lord will bring others into the group to study Peter's account as given by Mark. Please pray that this study helps open our eyes to see the full depth of the Gospel message and draws the heart of those who do not yet believe to repent and accept God's gift of eternal life.
Our family was recently blessed with a visit from Justin and Jocelin Humes and their 6 little girls. It is hard to believe that it has been 13 months since we last saw our dear friends. After traveling together in Gospel work those initial months, we have often been headed different ways geographically, but the Lord has continue to knit our hearts together even in the absence of seeing one another face to face. We had a little get together at our home while the Humes were here. There were 15 girls, the oldest being 11 years old. There were also 6 boys from 3 weeks to 15 years, and 13 adults. We had a great time of food and fellowship, then the men folk got out the Bibles and we had a great time of discussion about unity in Christ. The ladies also had a great time of profitable and encouraging discussion while the kids of all ages played so well together. We truly are a family in the Lord and we love being with our brothers and sisters.
Beyond the work in Georgia, we have also been able to travel once a month for a week or so to continue laboring with Christians in the region. West Virginia has become a regular stop for us as of late, with monthly trips about 500 miles north to spend Saturday- Wednesday helping the folks at Riverview Chapel in Hinton with Gospel outreach. Mark has been asked to come again this month, with a busy schedule that offers many opportunities for ministry of God's Word. In this next trip, we will leave the day after Thanksgiving (U.S) with a quick stop along the way to visit the Humes family in North Carolina. Mark will be speaking to a group of youth on Saturday night, then preaching at Riverview Chapel Sunday morning. Monday morning Mark will again share with some senior saints at the local senior center.
Brother Avi Bastajian will be preaching at the Gospel meetings of Riverview Chapel on Monday and Tuesday night. The topic, "The end of the world, December 21, 2012" Our brother plans to share the message of the coming of the Lord and the relevance of prophetic Biblical accounts to our day and age. He will use this topic to share the need for people to repent and be saved according to the Gospel. We are reminded so often that we are not promised tomorrow, and we ought to live each day as if it may be our last on this earth. With that in mind, I would suggest visiting our blog and looking for the video, "In my seat" which recounts the events in the life of Steve Scheibner, an American Airlines pilot. This man was scheduled to pilot Flight 11 on September 11, 20001. This is the first plane that flew into the Trade Towers in New York, setting off a chain of events that has changed the world.
From Hinton we plan to travel to Richmond, Kentucky to visit with the Christians gathered at Bluegrass Bible Fellowship. We will be staying with John and Virginia Frasher for 3 nights and have a pretty busy schedule of meeting, visiting, and even a holiday parade to be in. The plan is to help the Christians there as they give our Gospel materials in the parade. The celebration of Christ's birth is often a good opening for the Gospel message. In years past, we helped build a large float for the parade. We are looking forward to this time of ministry and travel, but are also excited to get back home to the primary work the Lord has prepared for us in McDonough, Georgia.
After arriving home on December 3, we should be concentrating on the work in McDonough until mid January, at which point we plan to go to Tampa, Florida for a week or so. That trip will be the first time in almost a decade that Mark's whole family will be together. Mark's brother Wesley lives in Tampa with his wife and daughter. The oldest brother Bruce is retiring from the Marine Corps a few day earlier, and will be joined by his wife also. The longest travelers of the group are Mark's mother, father, and step-mother. They will all be traveling by train from Maine to Oklahoma (Bruce's home and the site for the retirement ceremony), then on to Tampa. The whole family will only be in Tampa for 3 days, but we hope to stay a few days prior or after to help the GNOM team with outreach as they will be in that area during this time.
There is so much more to be told, but this newsletter is getting pretty long. So, if you want more of the details, please check our blog at cowperthwaitefamily.blogspot.com or find us on Facebook (Mark Sara Cowperthwaite) or even better yet, shoot us an email, letter, or call. We can still be reached by phone at 207-542-8916. We don't know what the future holds in the long term, but we are happy to be serving God in these ways for the time being. We continually pray about new opportunities for the Gospel and other ministry to Christians, but are learning so much in McDonough, so for now if you are headed through the Atlanta area, we have plenty of room and would love to have you stop in.
Grace and peace to you all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Mark for the Cowperthwaite family
P.S- Someone recently mentioned that it must be nice to not have to work( a secular job) so Sara and I have all our time just to spend with our family. They are partially right, as serving our Lord and Savior hardly seems like work, but we were reminded this week that lack of sleep and constant ministry is very taxing on the body. Mark spent 2 days in the sick bed this week due to lack of sleep due to the demands of ministry, and not taking care of himself as well as he should. Taking care of the body is very important, but often that seems to be the least important thing to dedicate time and resources to. I know many people who deal with this issue, between work, family, church, and all the other demands on our time, we all have to take time aside to also spend time with the Lord in prayer and be in His Word. We will not accomplish what God wants for us in the strength of the flesh, but in the power of the Spirit. Feed your spirit today, and take good care of your body, as we have noticed it is hard to minister when your body is exhausted.
